


The Beach

by Jay Tryfanstone (tryfanstone)



Series: The Rose Tattoo [6]
Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Juvenilia, M/M, Miscarriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-05
Updated: 2012-08-05
Packaged: 2017-11-11 11:47:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/478217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tryfanstone/pseuds/Jay%20Tryfanstone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sixth of the series. Darkfic warning. NC17 for dangerous issues - miscarriage. This was my first fandom, and the first time I'd written anything for a very long time. If I were you ... I'd give these Batman stories a miss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Beach

Batman had known for seven weeks before he heard. He just hadn't expected to hear first. 

Commissioner Gordon had tried Dick's home and work, was ringing the Manor in hope rather than expectation. Batman had just returned from an emergency watching brief at the JLA's tower that scoured his nerves and patience.

He did all the right things. He left messages on Dick's mobile and pager, with the BHPD and with his messaging service. He rang Gotham Central and let them know that the full weight of every Wayne dollar rested behind Barbara Gordon's continuing health. He contacted the JLA and the Titans and said the appropriate phrases. 

He found Tim, asked him to meet Dick. Found Cassandra, who, not entirely to his surprise, knew why he was phoning before she had forced the first strangulated 'Hello' out of her throat. He heard it in her voice. Left a message for Helena who, if not entirely part of his family, was close enough to need to know. Set up a series of e-mails so that, when Dick felt ready, he could if he wished inform the rest of the larger community without having to write a word. 

Spoke to Alfred. And that was almost the worst of all. 

Then Batman left the Manor.

 

Dick heard from Tim, who had been contacted by Batman, terse, with a tone to his voice that sent chills down Tim's spine. Batman had been decisive but non-committal. James Gordon called five minutes later, while Tim was driving to the sports hall where Dick spent a couple of hours a week coaching kids from the projects. His voice was cracking a little. "Get Dick." He said.

"He needs to be here." 

"I'm on my way," Tim said.

"Get him here," said Commissioner Gordon. 

 

Tim paused in the doorway, looked at the array of battered equipment. At the end of the hall, he saw Dick coaching a young girl, his hand supporting the impossible curve of her waist as she bent backward on the beam. Tim took a deep breath and walked forward. Spreading quiet stalked him down the hall, and before he was halfway Dick had turned. Was walking towards him. Had seen his face. 

"What is it?" asked Dick, fear stark in his eyes. "Is it Bruce?"

"No." Tim gave his friend a moment of relief. "Barbara's been taken to Gotham Central. The Comish's been on the phone. And Batman." 

Dick's face went white. Worried, Tim reached out, only to see Dick stare at his hand with uncomprehending eyes before turning to run up the hall. 

"Dick!" Tim shouted, running, just not fast enough. "Dick, don't drive, I've got the car -" 

Richard Greyson had evidently ignored his jacket, was fumbling one-handed at the straps of his helmet while redlining into a screaming acceleration.

"Oh damn," Tim muttered, looking at Dick's vanishing back as his friend finally managed to get his hand down to the gear lever. He began to run to the car, and was not greatly surprised when his mobile phone went off as he was exiting the car park. Cassandra. Damning the traffic laws along with his absent predecessor, Tim picked the handset up one-handed as he drove. 

"Cass?" 

"Scream. Bike. Dick."

"Yeah, I thought he'd go past the apartment. Have you heard?"

"Batman. Pick me up?"

"Get downstairs, I'll see you on the corner." 

"Gone." 

 

Leslie heard from Alfred who, not trusting his news to the telephone, arrived at the doors of her clinic with tears streaming down his face. She made him sit down, forced him to drink sweet tea before she would listen to what he was saying. When she made out his words, she called the fastest cab service she knew.

 

Commissioner James Gordon found her. 

 

Dick ran through the lobby, the smell of antiseptic acrid in his nose. Skidded round the corner into the battered and familiar emergency room. Slid to a halt in front of the desk, where a weary intern looked up with resignation.

"Barbara Gordon -" he managed, before a hand on his shoulder made him twist and duck. Even his skin was edgy. 

"Dick." James Gordon looked exhausted, his eyes red, the lines on his face chiseled deeper into that intelligent and guarded visage. Dick opened his mouth, could not manage words. His eyes said it.

"She's alive," said Barbara's father. "Just." 

Relief, a crimson wave of feeling washing light through his body for one brief second.

"Just?"

"She's in emergency surgery now."

"What happened? What about-?" 

James Gordon glanced at the waiting room. "Bruce got us a private room.." he said.

Bruce knows?" Dick asked. Then remembered.

"I rang the Manor for you."

"I was coaching up in the projects. Tim- Wait." Dick turned to the intern. "There's going to be another of us asking for Barbara Gordon - a young man. Possibly a girl as well. Maybe an older man - Bruce Wayne. Can you tell them we'll be- Commissioner?" 

"Room 23B."

"In room 23B." 

The intern nodded, made a notation.

It seemed such a small and definite action.Dick took a deep breath, suddenly dizzy, gripped the edge of the desk. They'd been through so much. Why couldn't life have handed her a fair deal this time, just this once?

"You OK?" 

Dick looked up. The Commissioner looked almost as unsteady as he felt. "I'm fine," he said. "Let's go." 

 

Pulling into the carpark with a silent Cassandra beside him, Tim noted Dick's road bike discarded by the exit, his helmet lying beside it. He stopped the car, looked at Cassandra.

"You want to practice parking?" 

Cassandra looked at him.

"I'll be two minutes. If anyone asks you to move.." 

Cassandra scowled.

"Don't break anything, please." 

 

Bruce's money spoke. There was coffee in the room, the hot bitter smell of it battling the industrial cleaners and antiseptic, the dust of a carpet not cleaned as often as it should be and worn by pacing feet. Commissioner Gordon sat heavily, leaning forward, his hands toying with an unlit cigar, the fingers knotted and looking older than when Dick had last seen them, handing over pages from a police file on the roof of the GPD building two nights ago.

"What do they say? What happened?"

"I don't know. The paramedic said he thought she had a fifty-fifty chance. They rushed her into surgery - I didn't have time -" Barbara's father looked up, blinked. "If I'd got there earlier-"

"What about-?" 

Gordon looked at Dick. "I don't see how she could have kept it. There was so much blood..." His eyes went blank.

Dick, with care, took hold of the battered arms of the chair he could barely feel. "You saw her?"

"I found her." 

 

There had been so much blood.

 

"I'd been walking along Moench. Past Rabeskys'. They had cinnamon doughnuts in the window." James Gordon looked around, his eyes puzzled. "I don't know what.." He shook his head. "You know, she-" 

 

("Dick, hey, Dick!" 

"Babs? How are you?" 

"Dick - I've had my first craving!")

 

"Yeah."

"I thought I'd pop up to see her. I know you boys have been keeping an eye on her, but-" 

 

("Oh, for goodness sake, Dick, women have been having been babies since Lucy had little Lucys. I want an evening to myself. Go play with Bruce."

"It's my baby too, beautiful."

"It's my body, and tonight it wants to sit down in front of the video with a big bowl of ice-cream and no visitors. I mean it.")

 

"I buzzed from the lobby, got no reply. I went up."

 

(Barbara, met at the airport by Dick, Tim, Alfred and a pair of uniformed Waynetech assistants, had to laugh.

"Look, guys, what is this?" 

"We couldn't find you."

"I've been gone _six hours_. In day time."

"Yeah, well." Dick looked at Tim. "Maybe it's catching." He said. and looked at Barbara. "Just tell us next time, okay? Bruce's been doing his nut.")

 

"I knocked at the door." He paused. "The camera didn't move, but...it was too quiet." Gordon looked up. "You know what I mean?" 

"Yes." Said Dick, his mouth dry.

 

("Barbara! Where are you!" shouted Dick, proud of himself, circumventing Barbara's security systems and arriving onto the living room carpet. "Babs! It's me!"

It was too quiet.

"Babs?"

"BABS?"

Dick listened to the room, the empty, waiting, absent, cold room. Still furnished. He walked out into the hall, stopped. There was so much blood. Blood ground into the wooden surface of the hall by the shuffling, urgent feet of paramedics, blood splattered in one arching trail across a wall, impossibly bright and high, the smell of blood, iron, death. Blood staining the lintels, blood pooling into dark puddles. The chalked outline of a body on the floor that was patched with, surely, more blood than the human body could hold.

"...Babs..." said Dick, into the quiet.)

 

"I let myself in. She was just..." Gordon looked at Dick. "She was in the entrance to the workroom." 

 

("Oh, come on Babs, of course he knows."

"Why?"

"Well, I'm sure he knows about Bruce and me."

"But why me? I'm his little girl." Barbara looks up, her eyes laughing. 

"He's not stupid."

"If he does know, he'll never say.") 

 

Cassandra lays a hand on Tim's, on the door handle. Through the window, Tim sees James Gorton's bent head. He looks at his lover. 

Cassandra shakes her head. "Father...Time." She says. 

Tim lets his hand fall, thinks. "Coffee?" He says. 

Cassandra cocks her head to one side. 

"Ahhh," Tim says to her. "I think that guy I met at the volunteer program transferred here. Let's go see if we can find him." 

 

Gordon's hands tightened and twisted, opened. He looked down, surprised, at the shreds of tabacco and paper. "I don't know how long she'd been there."

 

("Go on, Boy Wonder. You've already done the Bludhaven bit. Go home." Barbara had said, last night. 

"Just checking."

"I know. I'm fine. She's fine. We're both fine. Now go home. Cuddle Bats."

"He won't be there." There's a bitter edge to Dick's voice, and Barbara gives him a curious look before she hides her concern.

"He's working awfully hard these days. Go and remind him why you two stay together."

"Sometimes..these days..." Dick's eyes went to the window. He turns to Barbara, grins with an obvious effort. "You're sure?"

"Go away, Dick. I've got work to do." 

Left alone, Barbara looks at the space on the carpet where Nightwing had been standing. Then she rolled decisively to the workroom, picked up the phone, dialed the priority line. Had no answer. Had no returning call.)

 

"I hit the emergency button," Barbara's father said. The one he'd insisted she install, before he'd realised quite what powerful protection his little girl had earned. "Then I touched her." 

Oh, the sweet, bitter taste of that warm skin under his shaking hand.

"I thought she'd fainted." 

The ungainly sprawl of that dear, thickened body, the tangle of gleaming red hair. 

"Then I smelt the blood." 

Thick, cloying, dark, clotted blood on her skirt and on James Gordon's urgent fingertips, staining the clothing he rips off his daughter to expose the soaked wadding around her pelvis. "She'd started wearing those pants."

 

("Oh, this is impossible," Barbara said to Dick, returning from her third trip to the toilet in an hour. "You know, if this goes on, I'm going to get an infection I don't need."

"Oh Babs, you can't wear incontinence pants!"

"Can't I," Babs said. "Which would you prefer...knickers or rampant cystitis I can't feel so I end up having _all_ my plumbing removed in hospital?"

"Er..." Dick looks at Barbara's face. "Knickers?"

"Nice Wingster...get Greyson Industries to make up some pretty ones?"

"Oh great, Babs...how do I explain that?" But Dick is laughing.)

 

"There was so much blood," James Gordon said again. He looked away. "Then the paramedics arrived. They set the drip up as they took her clothing off." He swallowed. "She was still...hemorrhaging." That bright blood, on the darker clots, the slow and inexorable leak of life. "They said the pants might have saved her life. Stalled the blood." He looks at Dick. "Thanks."

 

("Bruce?"

"Yes?"

"Where do I get pretty incontinence pants?" 

Batman swings round in his chair. His eyes are slightly unfocused, his thought clearly on the data streaming across the screen behind him. "What?"

"Incontinence pants, Bats. For Babs." 

Batman's stare is uncomfortably hard. "I don't know." He lowers his head a little. "Ask Alfred?"

"Forget it," Nightwing says, heading for the garage.

"Dick-" Batman says, into the silence that follows his lover's exit. His hand opens, closes, on the mouse. One new mouse.) 

 

"They said they didn't know about the baby." Those huge, curled clots of blood and tissue. "But I don't think..." Gordon's hand, shaking, reaches out to Dick's. Holds it. Hard. 

Dick covers the Commissioner's hand with his own. "I'd rather have Babs than the baby," he says, his eyes brutally honest.

The Commissioner looks at him. "Me too."

Silence.

 

Tim knocks on the door of the small recreation room, opens it. "I'm looking for..hey, Greg, there you are. Can I have a word?" 

"Hey, Tim, Whatcha doin' here?"

"Trouble, Greg. Is there anywhere I can speak to you?" 

 

"At least..." Dick says. Then he stands, moves to the window. He will not think of Barbara dying. If faith can will her to hold onto this life, then faith he will give her.

Tim's car in the parking lot. His own bike, parked tidily. "Tim's here." He tells the Commissioner. "Probably Cass." 

Where was Bruce? Dick feels, for one second, the mixture of exasperation, pain, fear, he has felt since Barbara became pregnant and Bruce became..absent. When was the last time he had seen Bruce, not Batman? Not since the early weeks, not since Barbara had began to feel the changes in her body that she plotted with excitement and anticipatory glee. 

"Do you think Bruce will come?" Gordon says, in his eyes the faint thread of hope that in this, as in so much else, his friend will be with him.

"I don't know," Dick tells him, honestly.

A knock on the door. Tim, grave, Cassandra, and a chubby young man in a green intern's jacket.

"Dick, Comissioner..This is Greg Arkides. He's an intern here, I met him on the student volunteer program. We've got news." 

Two heads, two pairs of unnervingly intent eyes. Greg cleared his throat. "She's still in surgery," he says. "But I managed to catch one of the surgical assistants. They had to send someone for more blood." 

Gordon and Dick share one quick glance. Fear.

"They still think she's in with a chance. It was the..." He glances nervously between them. "It was the paralysis. She couldn't feel the blood." He stops, looks at Tim.

"She lost the baby," Tim says.

 

("Dick? Can you come over?"

"There's nothing wrong?"

"Greyson, I'm fine. I thought you might like to see the pictures, though."

"What pictures?"

"The scan pictures. I picked up the prints today. Oh Dick," Babs says, a wealth of love in her voice. "She's so beautiful.") 

 

Cassandra has her knuckles at her mouth, her eyes wide and dark on Dick.

 

("Bruce!" Dick says, with excitement, for once these days finding Batman in the cave and not on the streets. "Look at this!"

"What is it?" replies the Bat, absently. 

Dick clears a space next to the monitor. "Look. It's Bab's sixteen-week scan. She got two sets of prints." 

Batman looks up at his lover's happy face. Sighs. Looks down, with clear reluctance.

"You don't want to, do you?" Dick says, disbelief in his tone. "You really don't want to see." 

"Dick, I-" 

"Can't you be happy for me, for once?" Dick asks, his eyes dangerously bright.)

 

Dick turns to look out the window. Gordon lowers his head. 

"They think she might be out of surgery in forty minutes or so." Greg says. "They're going to take her up to the private ward. I don't know which room yet, you'll have to wait until she gets up there." 

Gordon looks at Tim. "Bruce?" he says. 

"Yeah. The hospital says he rang just after you got here." 

"Is he coming?" Tim looks at Dick's uncommunicative back. "I don't know." He says uncomfortably. 

Cassandra closes her eyes.

 

("Bruce?"

"Yes Tim."

"Dick says...Dick thinks...Bruce, you know I don't interfering between..."

"Then don't." It's the Bat speaking.) 

 

Dick sits, carefully, on the faded carpet, stretches his back. Repeats to himself the words of a mantra he learned a long time ago. Holds his heart still, wills his body to relax, thinks of the laughing girl that is his best and oldest friend. Surrounds that thought in light, in hope, giving her what strength he can. 

James Gordon lies his head back on the chair, a fresh cigar turning in his fingers. Remembers a small girl, an unexpected, puzzling and welcome joy. A teenager turning his bones to water as she balanced, fearless, on the high bar. A woman, making a new life for herself with courage and resourcefulness. He remembers Sarah. 'If you're there,' He asks her. 'Help my daughter.' 

Tim reaches out to Cassandra, holds her strong, thin hand in his. Remembers Barbara smiling, excited, as they went shopping for baby clothes. "Please God," he says to himself, his thoughts with the medics working over Barbara's still body.

Cassandra holds Tim's hand, knowing he needs her. She thinks of the fleeting sadness in Barbara's eyes as she handed over the first Batgirl costume Cassandra ever wore. Then she thinks, fiercely, with love, of Batman. 

A brief knock at the door. Four people's intent, frightened gaze.

"She's still okay," Greg says. "She's out of surgery. They're taking her up to the ward."

"Can we.." Gordon.

"Usually you'd have to wait until she came round from the anesthetic. But someone scared the hell out of management. Give it twenty minutes."

Dick. "What are her chances?" 

Greg looks down. "She lost a lot of blood. Her system went into shock. I'd wait.." He looks up. "Wait and see if she comes round when the anesthetic wears off. She might slip into coma." 

It's Tim whose harsh gasp is instantly suppressed. 

Dick stands up. "Let's go," he says. 

In the doorway, Tim, the last to leave, touches Cassandra's shoulder. "Shall we call Bruce?" he says. 

Cass's eyes meet his. She shakes her head.

"Why not?"

"Knows." She turns, walks away.

"What?" Tim hurries after her. "What do you mean?"

Cassandra turns and points her finger at Tim's chest, emphasizes each word. "Knows. Leave. Alone."

"`kay." Tim says. Puzzled. Angry.

"Stupid sometimes," Cass says to him. She smiles. " _My_ Tim." 

 

Alfred and Leslie arrive at the reception desk, are directed to the empty waiting room.

"Surely Mistress Barbara..." Alfred says, looking at the empty space with horror and fear.

"Nonsense," Leslie replied. She stalks into the corridor, grabs the nearest member of staff. " You don't know me," she says. "But I am Doctor Leslie Thompkins. I know more people on the board of this hospital than you met in your first Medical Science 101 class. And right now I need to find one particular patient." 

 

Dick wakes, disorientated. His back is stiff, his mouth bitter. Then he remembers. Sits up. With his free hand he smoothes back his rumpled hair before raising his eyes to the worn face of James Gordon, sitting opposite him on the other side of Barbara's bed. The older man acknowledges his tired gaze.

"No change," he says. 

Dick closes his eyes.

"They want us to talk to her," James Gordon's weary voice. "They say it might help her out of the coma." 

 

Barbara, curled into darkness, aware she has lost something precious to her, hears nothing.

 

"You must rest," Alfred says to Dick. He's aged, in the past two days, and his outstretched hand shakes with palsy. 

"Later. I'll just catnap here for now." 

 

Dick looks up, recognises the light-footed visitor from the pictures. "Hi," he says. "I'm glad you came." 

"Hello." The woman's voice is uncertain. 

Dick shakes his head. "Sorry," he says. I'm a bit tired. My name's Richard Greyson. I'm a friend of Barbara's."

"Oh yes. She mentioned you. How is she?"

"She's still in the coma. We're running shifts, talking to her. Her father, Tim.."

"I met the Commissioner downstairs."

"He know who you are?"

"No," she says, and smiles. She moves forward to take Barbara's hand. "Hello, lover." She says softly. Then she looks at Dick. "You want to take a break?"

"Yeah. Thanks."

When he returns in two hours she is still there, the soft sound of her voice muffled in the room. She doesn't need to see him to know he is there. 

"I'm not certain if she can hear or not."

"None of us are." Dick moved forward, took the other seat. "How are you?" 

She shrugged. "Fine. Busy." Her eyes return to Barbara's face.

"She looks..happier," Dick said. It was true. The frown between Barbara's eyebrows had eased a little, her stiff body curved gently towards her new visitor.

"I don't know." The woman frowned. "We had so little time together. She was always so busy, and of course then when Ayla came back..."

"She always spoke well of you."

"Thanks." Salu smiled, smoothed Barbara's hair. "I must go." 

"I would see you out, but.."

"It's okay. Hey -" Dick's voice reached the tall woman as she stood by the door. "How did you hear?"

"Raven told me," Shadow Lass said, as she slipped into the darkened corridor. 

'Raven?' thought Dick. Then he thought of Bruce, and for a moment his skin aches with the knowledge of his lover's absence. 'He must have told the Titans.' 

 

At the door, Tim fumbles with coffee. "Hey," he says.

"Hey yourself."

"How is she?"

 

Barbara waits, safe in the enclosing, cushioning emptiness. Not now. Whatever it is, she doesn't want to face it yet. She hears nothing, but is aware, as one would wear a blanket of cobwebs, that she is loved. 

 

Dick sleeps. Alfred sleeps, twitching, half-aware. James Gordon and Leslie talk softly across Barbara's bed, Leslie's nervous hands checking pulse and skin tone. Tim watches the monitors: Cassandra, alone, patrols. It's early morning. 

 

Barbara chooses remembrance. 

 

Under Leslie's fingers, Barbara's hand moves. "She held my hand!" the elderly doctor shouted.

"What?" Dozing, Tim wakes in startlement. James Gordon says nothing, but his eyes, meeting Leslie's, blaze with hope.

"Of course, it may mean nothing," Leslie says, but her eyes are fixed on the monitors. "Look." She says. "The ECG - it's recording far greater activity."

"What does that mean?"

"I think she might be waking up." 

Barbara's father closes his eyes. His hand reaches out to Barbara's. "I love you," he says, under his breath. He looks at Tim. "Get Dick and Alfred -"

"Hang on," Leslie says. "It might be a while." 

 

It's three hours, but James Gordon has refused to rest or eat or leave the room, despite Leslie's increasing concern for his health. When pushed, he will only remind her how long she, too, has been sleeping in room 23B and watching by Barbara's bed. 

Barbara's hand tightens on her father's. Her eyes open. "Hello, Dad," she says, her voice low and tired. 

"Shhh, love, don't speak. We're all here. We love you."

"Love you too, Dad." Her eyes move, slowly, pass Alfred and Leslie in chairs by the door, Tim on the floor with a tired Cassandra cradled in his embrace. Fasten onto Dick's face. "Dick."

"Babs." 

Oh, such love. And she must-

"Dick, I lost the baby."

"We know." He holds her hand, tightly enough for her to feel through this fog of tiredness and morphine. "We nearly lost you." 

There are tears on his cheeks. Barbara tries to smile at him, fails, and her eyes move to the space beside him before she slides puzzled into sleep.

"Leslie!"

"It's okay, people. It's natural. She'll wake." Her head snaps round to Alfred's. " _Now_ will you go home and sleep?" 

 

Barbara wakes again four hours later, when her father and a sleeping Cassandra are in the room. Dick has gone for more coffee, meets Tim and Greg in the hallway.

"Greg's been speaking to the surgeon," Tim says.

"What is it?" 

Greg looks at Dick. "He says that there was something wrong with Barbara's placenta. Whatever happened, she wouldn't have carried the baby to term."

"What?"

"She was going to miscarry anyway. It was just that no one was there." 

And Dick, startled out of shock, remembers for an instant Bruce's suggestion that Barbara should have a carer with her. Remembers Barbara's horrified refusal and her insistent independence. Remembers Bruce's fear when Barbara vanished on that flight: his constant comments to Dick about visiting, gifts, evenings, an attitude that Dick took as Bruce's rejection of his own company. Remembers Bruce's absence. And hurts. 

Tim says, "They think those pants saved her life."

"Well at least we did something right," Dick says, and heads back to Barbara's room. 

 

Her face is tired, her skin white, but she is awake and improving, half the alien cables taken from her skin. 

"`Lo, Beautiful," Dick says, sliding into the chair.

"Hey, Wing," she says, and then glances at her father.

"I'm just going for coffee," The Commissioner comments to the blankets, and leaves. 

Barbara shuts her eyes, holds Dick's hand. "I don't know what to say," she says. 

"Neither do I," Dick admits. "But it's good to see you back. Thought we might have lost you there."

Barbara's fingers tighten on his. "Love you."

"Love you too." 

She opens her eyes, looks at Dick. Frowns. "Where's Bruce?" And sees the instant rejection cross her friend's tired face.

"Don't know."

"That's odd..." Barbara is slipping into sleep again.

"What?"

"He's been around so much..."

"What do you mean?" Dick's voice is urgent now: he lowers it with an effort, trying not to push his friend.

"Every night...every hour...always outside the window...like being haunted..." Barbara has gone into the safety of sleep. 

Dick thinks. Tries to remember the last time that he and Bruce had spent a night in the same bed. Tries to remember when he and Batman spent time together. Remembers the patrols he did, cursing, on his own, the lonely nights, Bruce's sudden and painful refusal to come to Bludhaven.

"You bastard," he says to himself. "You knew."

 

It's another eight hours before Dick returns to the Manor. James Gordon, staying at the hospital, has promised to spend the night asleep: a rested Leslie and Tim will swop shifts by Barbara's side. Cassandra, insistent, was already out on patrol. Alfred had been just about to head back when Dick rang.

"Alfred?"

"Master Dick?"

"Can you hang on `til I get there?"

"Surely, Sir." 

But Alfred's voice is puzzled, and Dick feels sure that he isn't going to get any answers. He doesn't. Alfred, questioned with intent and force, was clearly upset by any suggestion that either he or Bruce had thought Barbara's pregnancy questionable. Dick's too tired to be gentle: Alfred too upset to be polite. Finally, the old butler storms out of the kitchen, only to return, eyes blazing, with a small mahogany box held in his shaking hands. 

"Before you start throwing wild accusations around," Alfred says, his voice quiet and stretched. "Perhaps you ought to look at what Master Bruce did do whilst you were in the Clocktower." He slams the box down in front of Dick. "I'm heading back into Gotham."

The front door slams. Dick looks down, opens the box. 

And is faced with a sepia photograph of two people he has never seen in his life. He turns it over.

 

(Lying in the crook of Bruce's arm, Dick is smiling. It's two days since Barbara got the test results. "I wonder who it'll look like." He says.

"Maybe it'll be lucky enough to look like Barbara."

"Thanks." Dick wiggles, putting his cold toes on Bruce's warm stomach.

"Hey!"

"Never go to bed with a gymnast." Dick tells his lover. Then his voice deepens a little. "It makes you think."

"Think what? How I ought to get Alfred to start finding some hot water-bottles?"

"That's my job," Dick says, automatically. "No, I was just thinking.."

"What?"

"You know, I've got no idea what my grandparents looked like? Either set? What with Mum having to elope with Dad, and Dad's family moving around so much..." Dick's voice tails off.

Bruce says nothing, but he tightens his arm around his lover.) 

 

And looks again. Puts it, carefully, on one side. Pulls out a small piece of paper: researcher's notes. More photographs. Another couple, a house, a model T Ford. Photocopied newspaper clippings, in English and in a gothic print Romanian. A family. A history.

 

Dick puts his head down on the kitchen table and cries. For himself. For Barbara. For the small and wanted child they made and lost. For Bruce. 

 

Cassandra wakes him two hours later, slipping through the kitchen window. An urgent hand on his shoulder. 

"Wha-" 

Cass's small face, pointed with urgency. "Get Batman."

"Barbara," Dick says groggily.

"Alfred. Tim. Leslie. Get Batman."

"Cassie..."

"You need. Needs you." 

 

Nightwing arrives, uninvited, at the JLA with red eyes and tangled hair. Across the wide viewing room, faces turn towards him in shock. No one speaks. He turns his head, searching, his neck stiff. 

"J'onn." 

Hears the big alien's voice in his mind. *Have you spoken to Raven? * 

"I don't need to," he says aloud. "Where is he?"

Silence.

"J'onn?" 

Silence.

" _Where is he?_ "

Silence. 

Nightwing crashes his hand down on the transformer panel.

" _WHERE IS HE?_ "

Dinah stands up. "Batman's not been here since..." She looks at J'onn for confirmation. "Since the watching brief." 

"Is that so?" Nightwing says. "What if I checked the transporter records?" His eyes hold J'onn's. See the slight movement that speaks of guilt. "If I tell you where he is." Nightwing says. "Will you send me there?" 

Slowly, the big alien nods.

 

Nightwing arrives, this time, at dawn. He stands alone on the sand, and feels the damp chill of a morning tenanted by emptiness, the dying heat of a tired and lonely star. Searches the broad stretch of sand. And sees, a mile or so up the beach, the small black huddle of a single human being. He starts to walk. After a while, he realises that the man he has come for is asleep, and steps lightly on the crystal sand. 

So it is that when Batman wakes into the cold of another empty day, the first thing he sees is his lover's drawn face, watching the rising sun. He says nothing, but Nightwing's face, needle to magnet, turns to his.

"You look terrible," Nightwing says, equably. 

"So do you." 

After a while Batman realises that he is not facing another hungry and hurting ghost, come to haunt him in this place as well as all the others.

"It's you," he says, stupid with pain and fatigue.

"Yeah." 

Batman sits up. "Barbara?" 

Nightwing's eyes hold his, hard with resentment. "Did you know?" 

"About the baby? Raven told me." Batman wraps his arms around his body. "When Barbara was - about eight weeks ago."

"I figured it out eventually. Did you know about Barbara too?"

Batman snatches at Nightwing's shoulder, drags his head round. "What about Barbara? What happened?" The big man's eyes blaze into Nightwing's. 

"She hemorrhaged. Most of the night." 

Batman let out his breath, long, silent. His voice is quiet and exact. "I thought you were with her."

"No one was. Gordon found her. She spent three days in a coma." 

Batman leaned back on the sand, looked up at the fading stars. "Nightwing-" 

"She's alright. I'd be with her if she wasn't."

"Who's with her?"

"Gordon. Tim. Alfred. Leslie."

"Batgirl?"

"Patrolling."

"Do you know," Nightwing says, tears bright again on his cheeks. "It was those damn pants that saved her. She would have bled to death without them." 

Beside him, Batman reaches out a hand, drops it. 

"I'm sorry," he says. 

"How could you do it?" Nightwing says. "How could you know and not tell us? How could you carry on?" 

Batman's voice is almost inaudible. "How could I not?" he says. "What was I supposed to say to you? How else could I protect you?" 

There are tears on his cheeks, as there have over the past three days, light, long past the rage and pain of first knowing.

"I didn't know," Nightwing says. He looks down. "It changes everything, doesn't it?"

"Yes." 

Batman stirs, reaches into his cape. One ungloved hand, one battered photograph. Batman spreads it out, carefully, on the sand, his fingers smoothing the creases where the paper has been crumpled in someone's hand. 

One finger, traces, carefully, the perfect curve of a shell-pink, bone jeweled spine.

"She was beautiful." 

Nightwing reaches out, clasps his hand on Batman's.

"She's loved." 

And at last Batman can reach out to his lover, enfold him in arms and cape, hold him as he cries.

 

Barbara, unaccountably reassured, smiles faintly in her sleep. Watching, James Gordon bows his head. She will heal. 

 

Whose hand clasps whose? Whose hair tangles salt and spray, whose skin cushions that tide-washed crystal sand? Who gasps, who moans? Who shudders? 

Whose hands strip wet costume from smooth skin, who arches, skin gilded in the rising sun? Whose hands turn clear water over their lover's body? Whose tongue brands heat into muscle? Whose lips are tender, whose hard? Who prays, who laughs with astonished relief and the pain of a present but assuaged grief?

Who cries when they come? Who screams? 

Does it matter?


End file.
